dvsn released A Muse in Her Feelings on April 17, 2020, through OVO Sound and Warner Records, the third studio album from the Toronto duo of singer Daniel Daley and producer Nineteen85. This deep dive returns to the dvsn A Muse in Her Feelings era, the moment the most private act on the OVO roster opened its doors and made its most collaborative, wide-ranging record.
The setup matters. Sept. 5th in 2016 and Morning After in 2017 were insular records, two people in a room building slow, nocturnal R&B with almost no outside voices. A Muse in Her Feelings kept the core intact and changed everything around it: 16 tracks, and a guest list that runs from Snoh Aalegra and Summer Walker to Future, Popcaan, Buju Banton, Jessie Reyez, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Shantel May and Ty Dolla $ign.
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dvsn A Muse in Her Feelings loosens the formula
The singles chart the expansion. Miss Me arrived in July 2019. No Cryin, with Future, followed that October. A Muse opened January 2020, and Between Us, featuring Snoh Aalegra, landed on March 19, a remake of their own In Between that flips Usher’s Nice and Slow and became the album’s signature record, complete with a Brendan Vaughan directed video in which Nineteen85 plays the detective watching the affair unfold. Dangerous City, with Ty Dolla $ign and Buju Banton, arrived April 10, one week before the album, and pointed at the dancehall and Caribbean sounds woven through the tracklist.
This is a collection of conversations between me and 85. A lot of our studio sessions start with us sitting down and talking about whatever is going on with us.
Daley said that to Essence around the release, and it explains the album’s perspective. The title itself is a triple reading, which the duo spelled out at the time: a muse in her feelings, amusing her feelings, using her feelings. The songs narrate relationships from the other side of the conversation, and the female guest voices are not decoration; on Flawless, Summer Walker takes the record over, and on Again, Shantel May closes the album by answering it.
The Toronto R&B blueprint, widened
What holds the record together is Nineteen85’s production, pared back here so Daley’s voice sits at the front rather than inside the mix. No Good opens the album with a confession over spare keys. Still Pray for You leans into classic soul. Keep It Going pulls in club energy that Morning After had only hinted at. Courtside pairs Daley with Jessie Reyez, two Toronto voices circling each other, and So What hands Popcaan a verse that connects the album to the Caribbean culture both members of dvsn grew up around.
That range is why the album holds up as more than a guest-heavy detour. Every collaboration routes back through the duo’s own city and sound: OVO’s Toronto, filtered through dancehall, bounce, classic soul and slow jam tradition, with Daley narrating and Nineteen85 holding the frame.
How the album was received, and what it changed
Critics at the time heard the shift clearly. Clash described a third album where Nineteen85’s production is pared back and Daley’s vocals become the focal point rather than another instrument in the mix, and NME framed the record as the Canadian duo breathing new life into R&B, with its noughties-inspired synths and subdued percussion updated for 2020. The reviews kept returning to the same observation: the guests raised the ceiling without lowering the duo into the background.
Commercially and culturally, the album widened the lane Toronto R&B could occupy. dvsn had proven that slow, private records could build a devoted audience. A Muse in Her Feelings proved the same writers could fill a tracklist with stars, pull dancehall and bounce into the frame, and still sound like nobody else. The Toronto R&B that followed, conversational, guest-friendly and rooted in Caribbean and soul traditions at once, runs partly through the door this album opened.
The deluxe chapter and the album’s place
The era did not end at release. A chopped and screwed version from DJ Candlestick and OG Ron C of The Chopstars followed in July 2020, and on January 15, 2021, the deluxe EP Amusing Her Feelings extended the project with additional songs including Blessings and a cover of Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody. The wordplay of the title completed itself: the muse, amused.
Six years on, A Muse in Her Feelings stands as the pivot in the dvsn catalogue, the record where a duo famous for mystery proved the mystery could survive daylight, guests and choruses built for rooms bigger than the bedroom. Sept. 5th made them a secret. This album made them a scene.
